A critical review of local and world news. This blog originally commented on the Moncton Times and Transcript but has enlarged its scope.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Dec.3: a very general sort of day...

This is a day of
odds and ends with no news that really stands out.

As I first watched
the American leadership debates, I was struck by the lack of any
sense of economic policy, social policy, or even of social concern.
All the things an election should be about were ignored. It was
entirely about fears and hatreds, feelings that had been encouraged
by the government and the press. With the sole exception of Democrat
Bernie Sanders, the candidates are talking only about which of them
hates more and is willing to kill more.

The U.S., itself,
does not exist in these speeches. The startling rise in poverty in
the U.S. is rarely even mentioned. Nor is defence spending, though it
is now the highest in the world by far, so high that is makes social
spending almost impossible. The U.S. is also the world's largest
exporter of weapons – with no way of controlling who gets them in
the end. No-one (but Sanders) has said much about racism in the
U.S., or about domestic crime with an extremely high murder rate.
Your chances of getting killed in a mass shooting in the U.S.
carried out by Muslims are very small. But your chances of getting
killed in a mass shooting carried out by American citizens are over
four hundred times higher. And your chances of being killed by U.S.
police are far, far higher than that.

But, no, the big
issues are hate and fear and killing.

What makes that
possible is private news media (which means most of them) treat
foreign affairs as a very simple matter. When Bush invaded Iraq, and
killed over a million people, he said it was because Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction. None of the private news media even bothered to
ask what a weapon of mass destruction is. (Nor did they ask anything
about U.S. stocks of weapons of mass destruction.)

And when we learned
that there were no such weapons in Iraq, it was still okay that
Britain and the U.S. killed over a million people. After all, Saddam
was a bad man, said our news media. Then it emerged that Blair and
Bush had lied in the first place. But the private news media scarcely
mentioned it. Nor did it have the wit or the integrity to ask WHY
Bush and Blair had lied. Why did we kill over a million people? Was
it just to get one, bad man?

Almost 5,000
Americans, British and others died to get that 'bad man'. There were
also the thousands who would suffer battle damage for life, and those
who have committed suicide – and are still committing suicide at
record rates.

But Tony Blair
became a multi-millionaire as a result of that war. And George Bush
routinely collects tens of thousands of dollars (and often much more)
for giving a short and brainless speech.

Then there was the
invasion of Afghanistan. That was, we were told, because Afghanistan
was sheltering Bin Laden and the people who had planned 9/11. But,
actually, it wasn't.

9/11 was not planned
by or even in Afghanistan. It was planned by Saudis living in Europe.
And when the U.S. demanded that Afghanistan hand over Bin Laden,
Afghanistan took the reasonable position that this should go to an
international court – as international law requires. But American
Exceptionalism meant that the U.S. could do whatever it liked (under
God). So the U.S. invaded.

So far, the number
of dead for the U.S. Canada, Britain, France and Spain are well over
4,000. Those for the other side (soldiers and civilians) about
100,000 plus the uncounted number tortured and the unkown number
still in prisons around the world, and still being tortured.

And they didn't get
Bin Laden because he wasn't in Pakistan, anyway. Does it make sense
that over a hundred thousand people should die to catch one bad man?

Our news media seem
to think so because none of them has ever questioned what this war
was really about. And the war is still going after fifteen years of
fighting – and after bin Laden is dead.

Wars usually have
very complex reasons. Commonly, they are fought for the benefit of
whoever makes up the dominant class in a society. For centuries, wars
were for the benefit of kings and aristocrats. Now, they are commonly
fought for the very wealthy. But the news media never say that. In
their view, the U.S. has had to fight wars almost every year since
1775 because other countries – like Canada, Mexico, Guatemala,
Cuba, Haiti,The Phillipines, almost all of the countries of Central
America, Libya. Iraq….those bullies are always picking on the U.S.

That's the way
American history books tell it. That's the way the press tells it.
And that's what the American public, for the most part, believes. In
short, the press in the U.S. deliberately keeps Americans ignorant of
what is going on, and why. That is why we are watching a parade of
clowns looking for the presidency.

And Canada is not
nearly so different as we might think.

In fairness, it can
be very difficult to figure out the reasons for each war – because
the reasons can be very complex, indeed, chock full of secret
meetings, deals, pay-offs, pretending to fight one country (as in the
case of ISIS) while actually using that other group to fight for you
(as using ISIS against Assad).

Here's the site that
started me on this rant. It was sent to me by a reader. And its
complexity as an article reflects the complexity of figuring out what
the war is all about.

But there is a
lesson to be drawn from this. American democracy has collapsed. I
don't know where the U.S. goes from here; but it's not likely to be
good. Look at those candidates. They all want to lead a country.
It's obvious none (except Bernie Sanders) has ever given any thought
to what a democracy is, and what a democratic country should be like.
And they can get away with it because the whole country has been kept
in that state of ignorance that many people like to call
'patriotism'.

Our press usually
overlooks another result of our constant interference with societies
shattered by that interference.

Afghanistan, for
example, is a young country, not yet two hundred years old. It was a
region inhabited by tribal and family groups. The work of knitting
these groups into a nation and modernizing that nation has been a
difficult job and still very incomplete – thanks to Britain, Russia
and now the U.S. who invaded and destroyed all the progress made
many, many times. Over the years, these countries have blackmailed
Afghanistan, invaded, and abused it. That's why it has advanced so
little in some two hundred years of trying. It's still a place in
which family and tribe count for more than state.

Afghanistan is what
it is because of us. The Taliban who have been fighting the U.S. were
trained and equipped by the CIA to fight a proxy war for the U.S.
against a Russian invasion. The CIA also formed al Quaeda for the
same reason. Everything the Americans and British and French are
fighting against are creations of Americans and British and French
over the past century. Today, in much of the world, groups are
fighting not because they're evil, but because their hatreds were
created by us.

67 years ago, there
was a Palestine in which Jews and Muslims and Christians had lived
together for centuries as neighbours and friends. Then we decided to
kick out most of the Muslims, and create an Israel. We didn't even do
it as a favour to the European Jews. We did it so the European Jews
wouldn't come here – and so we could have a country in the region
that would be our foothold for oil barons.

And forget the bilge
about the homeland. In the first place, Israel wasn't the homeland of
the Jews. When Moses arrived, it was already populated as a region of
very small, tribal states. The Jews conquered them, and took it. (I
know, God gave it to them. But there are lots of Muslims who aren't
convinced about that. Go figure.)

I don't know where
the Jews lived before the years of slavery. But I know where they
originally came from. Like every human on this earth, their original
homeland was Africa. (Yes. You, too.)

Planting European
Jews there destroyed the religious harmony between Jews, Christians
and Muslims that had been the rule for centuries. And it destroyed
the social structures that had kept the region in peace. It even
angered the Sephardic Jews (those who had lived there for centuries.
To this day, they quite often dislike the European Jews.)

Then there are the
African Jews, not many but they have existed as Jews for a very long
time. But the Israeli government is reluctant to accept them as Jews
because of their colour. In short, the Israeli government seems
determined to define Jews as a race, and not just a religion.

Think now of the last man who defined Jews as a race. (It was Adolf
Hitler.)

Capitalism isn't the
only cause of war. But it is probably the commonest. It can work. But
it has to be controlled – or it destroys us. Capitalists, today,
are pulling out all the stops to make 2016 the year almost all the
regulations are pushed aside. Democracy will become, as it is in the
U.S., unworkable.

That is a reality
that our news media give no hint of.

But there may be
some good news. I can't quite believe this story. But there's a new
poll…

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About Me

born into poverty in Montreal. (1933 was a bad year to be born.) Kicked out of school in grade 11. Became factory hand, office boy.
Did a general BA, mostly at night at Sir George Williams University, and partly while a youth worker for YMCA, camps, etc. Then teacher training at McGill.
Taught gradea 7 to 11 for six years. Loved it.
Quit to do MA at Acadia, then PhD (History) at Queen's.
Taught history three years at UPEI, then some 35 years at Concordia U in Montreal.
Loved the teaching. Thought the profs had more pompous and useless asses among then than is really desirable outside a zoo.
work experience:
factory, office,social group work, office,camp director, teacher.
Radio - c. 3000 broadcasts, mostly current events.
TV - many hundred appearances, mostly commentaries.
Film - some writing, advising, voice-overs.
Writing - no count, some hundreds. Some academic, but mostly for popular market, and ranging from short stories to stories to newspaper and magazine columns to history books.
professional speaker - close to 2000.
Awards for the above? yep